Employee Engagement
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20 employee retention survey questions you need to ask and why

Published on 
May 27, 2022

Employee turnover and attrition are bad news for many companies and organizations. Retaining employees can make a massive difference to your business's bottom line. The recent Great Resignation has been a serious wake-up call for many of us in management to pay more attention to our workplace culture, refocus on retention and introduce new practices like regularly asking survey questions to take the pulse of employee sentiment.

The cost to replace an employee can range between one to two times the employee's annual salary.

Gallup

This painful amount is due to:

  • lost productivity
  • new employee training and onboarding
  • effects on decreased employee morale.

Losing your top performers can be even more devastating, as they often fill a niche role that requires expertise and skillset that's hard to replace.

Retaining employees rather than seeing another turnover offers several attractive retention benefits, including:

  • increased revenue
  • improved corporate culture
  • a better customer experience

The good news is that you can do a lot to reduce employee turnover. More than half of exiting employees say that their manager could have done something to prevent them from leaving. Just ponder that a moment.

Employee retention surveys are a great way to identify how employees feel about their workplace and prospects in your company. They also complement traditional exit surveys and stay interviews to pinpoint current workplace concerns and head them off before they lead to excessive employee attrition.

The importance of asking the right survey questions for employee retention

Any company serious about improving its retention rates needs to be able to measure its employee satisfaction. While an open feedback culture is a gold standard for improving employee morale and retention, creating one takes significant time and effort to show results.

Employee surveys provide your organization with clear evidence of how employees feel in their workplace. These vital tools can monitor trends and identify current and future concerns.

{emphasize}There is an inherent link between employee engagement and retention, another reason why it's so important to find ways to keep your finger on the pulse of employee sentiment.{emphasize}

They also provide better answers than a traditional exit survey, where responses are often biased and skewed because the former employee doesn't want to burn bridges or because they are fed up with the organization.

As with other employee sentiment measurement tools, you'll need to invest in development to get the most out of your employee retention survey. It isn't enough to put together a few questions about the workplace and hope for the best. The more time you spend developing the right survey questions and strategy, the more valuable the employee feedback you'll get will be.

20 examples of employee retention survey questions

A platform like Officevibe helps you get to know your people by using tools like Pulse Surveys to take the guesswork out of finding out how your team feels. While the examples below aren't as exhaustive as our in-app bank of 122 science-baked questions, we've created a quick list related to the most relevant retention themes to spark the conversation.

{emphasize}If you find this list helpful, you might also enjoy these 35 employee survey questions to amplify team engagement.{emphasize}

Employee engagement survey questions

Employee engagement refers to how passionate your workers are about their job, which often translates into their commitment to their organization. It's a key component of low turnover workplaces, where employees feel valued and challenged by their work.

Here are some questions to help your management discover how engaged your employees are in their current positions.

  1. When was the last time you felt proud about something you achieved at work?
  2. What would you consider to be the most challenging aspect of your position?
  3. Rate your workload on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being too little and 10 being completely overwhelmed.
  4. How likely would you be to recommend a job at our company to a family member or friend? Can you explain the reasoning for your answer?

Survey questions about company culture

Workplace culture plays a prominent role in employee engagement and retention. A collaborative culture improves the employee experience, enhances productivity, and stops managers from losing employees to other teams, departments, or companies.

Here are some of the best questions to assess how employees perceive their corporate culture.

  1. Do you feel like you can be yourself around your managers and teammates?
  2. Do you feel you can bring up problems to your manager and, if so, that your manager will address them?
  3. On a scale of 1-10, how much do you think your employer values your contribution, with 1 being not at all and 10 being highly valued?
  4. If you could change one thing about the culture in our organization, what would it be and why?

Survey questions about career development

Employees are likely to leave if they feel your company doesn't offer the career advancement they expect. High-quality development opportunities within the organization can ensure that your most highly skilled individuals will stay.

  1. Have you received any training opportunities within the last six months, and did they contribute to achieving your career goals?
  2. Have you encountered any new opportunities within the company that will help you on your career path?
  3. What type of development plan would improve your performance and help you move forward in your career?
  4. Are you getting value out of current training and development programs?
  5. Have you and your manager set expectations about your progress in the company?

{emphasize}🌱 Help your team members grow. Take the career development talk a step further using our one-on-one meeting template specifically designed to guide these conversations.{emphasize}

Survey questions about compensation and perks

Proper and fair compensation is critical in keeping employees at their jobs. According to a report from the Society for Human Resource Management, 96% of employees say that compensation is important to their overall job satisfaction and employee experience. We can't say we're surprised by that fact.

Here are some questions to approach the subject of compensation and perks:

  1. Do you feel you get paid fairly in your current position compared to others in your type of position working elsewhere?
  2. Would you take a new job at another company if they offered you the salary you currently make?
  3. Are you satisfied with the perks you get currently? If not, what perks would you like to see the company offer in the future?

Survey questions about management

The old adage says, "People leave managers, not companies." Managers strongly impact overall employee satisfaction and require feedback from employees to know if they're improving the overall employee experience. Here are some questions to find out if resolving management kinks can boost retention.

  1. Does your manager provide you with the support you need to complete your work?
  2. What does your manager do to support you and your team in accomplishing tasks?
  3. Would you recommend your direct manager to another team?
  4. Are you satisfied with the recognition you receive from your manager? When was the last time you received acknowledgment for excelling in your role?

Once you've developed the perfect questionnaire, you'll need a method to carry out the survey. Officevibe has excellent tools to measure all the important aspects of employee retention. Whether you want to conduct a quick pulse survey to get a snapshot of the current situation or longer-form surveys to get ideas on how to improve as an employer or manager, Officevibe's resources are flexible to meet your needs.

When to use employee retention surveys

Employee retention surveys can act as proactive or reactive tools to measure employee engagement and satisfaction. If your organization already experiences too much turnover, using longer surveys can pinpoint specific employee concerns leading them to resign.

However, the best use for surveys is as a proactive tool to keep employees satisfied and turnover low. Short pulse surveys at the end of the week or month can help managers gauge the current employee mood. These questionnaires are an excellent way to pick up potential issues.

[ov_cta id="5117536"]

In most cases, employees plan to leave well before handing in their resignation letter, so addressing their concerns early on might be enough to head off an unwanted personnel loss.

You can also use a longer employee engagement survey to discover ways to improve employee retention. These questionnaires can help your organization take long-term steps to improve its employer brand and attract new talent to the company.

It's important to note that while employee retention surveys are an excellent tool to discover how employees feel about your organization, you can find plenty of other ways to get employee feedback. These might include:

You can incorporate employee retention surveys in some of these feedback sessions to get even more useful data. Be sure to adapt the questionnaires to suit the situation. For example, an employee engagement questionnaire might not be completely anonymous during a team meeting, so avoid asking those more intimate questions.

Employee retention survey best practices

Designing a survey for maximum results takes time. The type of questions you ask, how you ask them, and even how often you send surveys out can affect the quality of your data. Here are some best practices to keep in mind:

{emphasize}

  • Keep the survey short: Employees already have enough on their plate without spending half an hour answering a questionnaire. Keep surveys to ten questions or less.
  • Ask specific and open-ended questions: Asking broad questions often leads to employees providing vague, non-actionable answers. By keeping the questions straightforward, the company can identify problems and solutions and get a clearer picture of how the workforce feels. Open-ended questions encourage longer answers that can provide you with ideas on how to improve the organization's culture.
  • Avoid leading questions: Leading questions encourage specific answers, leading to inaccurate data. For instance, "Which aspect of your fantastic job do you love the most?" implies that the employee already feels that their job is fantastic and loves aspects of the job, which may not be the case.
  • Keep surveys anonymous: Employees may be reluctant to give honest answers about their manager or the company if they fear reprisals or negative consequences. Making the surveys anonymous allows for more honest feedback and will often result in a higher response rate.
  • Send out surveys regularly: The only way to maximize results from an employee retention survey is consistency. By integrating the questions into routine quarterly performance reviews and conducting smaller Pulse Surveys at the end of each month, you can show employees that you care about their opinion. Doing so makes it more likely that you'll get genuine, actionable data. Using survey tools like Officevibe can assist in scheduling, making it easier to find the optimal timing for your survey.{emphasize}

How to use employee feedback from surveys to improve retention and turnover

Once you've gotten the hang of employee retention surveys, the next challenge is to analyze the data you receive. As with all other tools, employee retention surveys are only as good as those using them. What you do with the results of an employee survey can have as much of an impact as conducting the employee engagement survey in the first place.

While you will never please everyone, employee retention surveys will give you a starting point for improving your workplace. The more employees you get to answer an employee survey, the more accurate and actionable your results.

If one person on a team says they don't like their manager, you may not have any reason to act. However, if everyone on the team gives the same answer, you know you have a legitimate concern.

{emphasize}💡 Surveys are a practicable and measurable tool to help, but there are other ways to prevent turnover. Check out these 10 strategies to improve employee retention via engagement.{emphasize}

A management tool from Officevibe can help you make sense of the answers you receive. The platform simplifies the development of an employee survey, and it can also help your organization make effective decisions concerning employee retention and reducing turnover.

Assess your organization's employee experience in minutes

What's in this article
This is some text inside of a div block.

Employee turnover and attrition are bad news for many companies and organizations. Retaining employees can make a massive difference to your business's bottom line. The recent Great Resignation has been a serious wake-up call for many of us in management to pay more attention to our workplace culture, refocus on retention and introduce new practices like regularly asking survey questions to take the pulse of employee sentiment.

The cost to replace an employee can range between one to two times the employee's annual salary.

Gallup

This painful amount is due to:

  • lost productivity
  • new employee training and onboarding
  • effects on decreased employee morale.

Losing your top performers can be even more devastating, as they often fill a niche role that requires expertise and skillset that's hard to replace.

Retaining employees rather than seeing another turnover offers several attractive retention benefits, including:

  • increased revenue
  • improved corporate culture
  • a better customer experience

The good news is that you can do a lot to reduce employee turnover. More than half of exiting employees say that their manager could have done something to prevent them from leaving. Just ponder that a moment.

Employee retention surveys are a great way to identify how employees feel about their workplace and prospects in your company. They also complement traditional exit surveys and stay interviews to pinpoint current workplace concerns and head them off before they lead to excessive employee attrition.

The importance of asking the right survey questions for employee retention

Any company serious about improving its retention rates needs to be able to measure its employee satisfaction. While an open feedback culture is a gold standard for improving employee morale and retention, creating one takes significant time and effort to show results.

Employee surveys provide your organization with clear evidence of how employees feel in their workplace. These vital tools can monitor trends and identify current and future concerns.

{emphasize}There is an inherent link between employee engagement and retention, another reason why it's so important to find ways to keep your finger on the pulse of employee sentiment.{emphasize}

They also provide better answers than a traditional exit survey, where responses are often biased and skewed because the former employee doesn't want to burn bridges or because they are fed up with the organization.

As with other employee sentiment measurement tools, you'll need to invest in development to get the most out of your employee retention survey. It isn't enough to put together a few questions about the workplace and hope for the best. The more time you spend developing the right survey questions and strategy, the more valuable the employee feedback you'll get will be.

20 examples of employee retention survey questions

A platform like Officevibe helps you get to know your people by using tools like Pulse Surveys to take the guesswork out of finding out how your team feels. While the examples below aren't as exhaustive as our in-app bank of 122 science-baked questions, we've created a quick list related to the most relevant retention themes to spark the conversation.

{emphasize}If you find this list helpful, you might also enjoy these 35 employee survey questions to amplify team engagement.{emphasize}

Employee engagement survey questions

Employee engagement refers to how passionate your workers are about their job, which often translates into their commitment to their organization. It's a key component of low turnover workplaces, where employees feel valued and challenged by their work.

Here are some questions to help your management discover how engaged your employees are in their current positions.

  1. When was the last time you felt proud about something you achieved at work?
  2. What would you consider to be the most challenging aspect of your position?
  3. Rate your workload on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being too little and 10 being completely overwhelmed.
  4. How likely would you be to recommend a job at our company to a family member or friend? Can you explain the reasoning for your answer?

Survey questions about company culture

Workplace culture plays a prominent role in employee engagement and retention. A collaborative culture improves the employee experience, enhances productivity, and stops managers from losing employees to other teams, departments, or companies.

Here are some of the best questions to assess how employees perceive their corporate culture.

  1. Do you feel like you can be yourself around your managers and teammates?
  2. Do you feel you can bring up problems to your manager and, if so, that your manager will address them?
  3. On a scale of 1-10, how much do you think your employer values your contribution, with 1 being not at all and 10 being highly valued?
  4. If you could change one thing about the culture in our organization, what would it be and why?

Survey questions about career development

Employees are likely to leave if they feel your company doesn't offer the career advancement they expect. High-quality development opportunities within the organization can ensure that your most highly skilled individuals will stay.

  1. Have you received any training opportunities within the last six months, and did they contribute to achieving your career goals?
  2. Have you encountered any new opportunities within the company that will help you on your career path?
  3. What type of development plan would improve your performance and help you move forward in your career?
  4. Are you getting value out of current training and development programs?
  5. Have you and your manager set expectations about your progress in the company?

{emphasize}🌱 Help your team members grow. Take the career development talk a step further using our one-on-one meeting template specifically designed to guide these conversations.{emphasize}

Survey questions about compensation and perks

Proper and fair compensation is critical in keeping employees at their jobs. According to a report from the Society for Human Resource Management, 96% of employees say that compensation is important to their overall job satisfaction and employee experience. We can't say we're surprised by that fact.

Here are some questions to approach the subject of compensation and perks:

  1. Do you feel you get paid fairly in your current position compared to others in your type of position working elsewhere?
  2. Would you take a new job at another company if they offered you the salary you currently make?
  3. Are you satisfied with the perks you get currently? If not, what perks would you like to see the company offer in the future?

Survey questions about management

The old adage says, "People leave managers, not companies." Managers strongly impact overall employee satisfaction and require feedback from employees to know if they're improving the overall employee experience. Here are some questions to find out if resolving management kinks can boost retention.

  1. Does your manager provide you with the support you need to complete your work?
  2. What does your manager do to support you and your team in accomplishing tasks?
  3. Would you recommend your direct manager to another team?
  4. Are you satisfied with the recognition you receive from your manager? When was the last time you received acknowledgment for excelling in your role?

Once you've developed the perfect questionnaire, you'll need a method to carry out the survey. Officevibe has excellent tools to measure all the important aspects of employee retention. Whether you want to conduct a quick pulse survey to get a snapshot of the current situation or longer-form surveys to get ideas on how to improve as an employer or manager, Officevibe's resources are flexible to meet your needs.

When to use employee retention surveys

Employee retention surveys can act as proactive or reactive tools to measure employee engagement and satisfaction. If your organization already experiences too much turnover, using longer surveys can pinpoint specific employee concerns leading them to resign.

However, the best use for surveys is as a proactive tool to keep employees satisfied and turnover low. Short pulse surveys at the end of the week or month can help managers gauge the current employee mood. These questionnaires are an excellent way to pick up potential issues.

[ov_cta id="5117536"]

In most cases, employees plan to leave well before handing in their resignation letter, so addressing their concerns early on might be enough to head off an unwanted personnel loss.

You can also use a longer employee engagement survey to discover ways to improve employee retention. These questionnaires can help your organization take long-term steps to improve its employer brand and attract new talent to the company.

It's important to note that while employee retention surveys are an excellent tool to discover how employees feel about your organization, you can find plenty of other ways to get employee feedback. These might include:

You can incorporate employee retention surveys in some of these feedback sessions to get even more useful data. Be sure to adapt the questionnaires to suit the situation. For example, an employee engagement questionnaire might not be completely anonymous during a team meeting, so avoid asking those more intimate questions.

Employee retention survey best practices

Designing a survey for maximum results takes time. The type of questions you ask, how you ask them, and even how often you send surveys out can affect the quality of your data. Here are some best practices to keep in mind:

{emphasize}

  • Keep the survey short: Employees already have enough on their plate without spending half an hour answering a questionnaire. Keep surveys to ten questions or less.
  • Ask specific and open-ended questions: Asking broad questions often leads to employees providing vague, non-actionable answers. By keeping the questions straightforward, the company can identify problems and solutions and get a clearer picture of how the workforce feels. Open-ended questions encourage longer answers that can provide you with ideas on how to improve the organization's culture.
  • Avoid leading questions: Leading questions encourage specific answers, leading to inaccurate data. For instance, "Which aspect of your fantastic job do you love the most?" implies that the employee already feels that their job is fantastic and loves aspects of the job, which may not be the case.
  • Keep surveys anonymous: Employees may be reluctant to give honest answers about their manager or the company if they fear reprisals or negative consequences. Making the surveys anonymous allows for more honest feedback and will often result in a higher response rate.
  • Send out surveys regularly: The only way to maximize results from an employee retention survey is consistency. By integrating the questions into routine quarterly performance reviews and conducting smaller Pulse Surveys at the end of each month, you can show employees that you care about their opinion. Doing so makes it more likely that you'll get genuine, actionable data. Using survey tools like Officevibe can assist in scheduling, making it easier to find the optimal timing for your survey.{emphasize}

How to use employee feedback from surveys to improve retention and turnover

Once you've gotten the hang of employee retention surveys, the next challenge is to analyze the data you receive. As with all other tools, employee retention surveys are only as good as those using them. What you do with the results of an employee survey can have as much of an impact as conducting the employee engagement survey in the first place.

While you will never please everyone, employee retention surveys will give you a starting point for improving your workplace. The more employees you get to answer an employee survey, the more accurate and actionable your results.

If one person on a team says they don't like their manager, you may not have any reason to act. However, if everyone on the team gives the same answer, you know you have a legitimate concern.

{emphasize}💡 Surveys are a practicable and measurable tool to help, but there are other ways to prevent turnover. Check out these 10 strategies to improve employee retention via engagement.{emphasize}

A management tool from Officevibe can help you make sense of the answers you receive. The platform simplifies the development of an employee survey, and it can also help your organization make effective decisions concerning employee retention and reducing turnover.

Equip HR and managers with tools to engage, recognize, and drive performance.

Related content

When you hear "performance review," what comes to mind? As a manager, do you think of it as a once-a-year task that's just part of your checklist? Or perhaps, do you think of it as a laborious process with no clearly useful output?

Rest assured; the performance review process can be utilized strategically and absolutely be done in a way that is structured, effective, and impactful.

In this article, you'll find your ultimate guide to employee performance reviews. We'll walk you through the essential steps involved in conducting effective performance reviews and provide guidance on what a successful review should look like — before, during, and after. When done right, they can contribute to employee growth, development, and higher business performance.

Here is everything you need to conduct successful employee performance reviews

What is an employee performance review?

Let's first cover the basics. At its core, a performance review is a structured process that evaluates an individual's job performance and provides constructive feedback. Performance reviews are an essential part of the performance management process and support goal-setting, monitoring, and accountability.

Traditionally, a performance review has been an annual event, but in the modern workplace, with continuous performance management gaining traction, performance reviews have taken different forms — be it regular check-ins or ongoing feedback to foster employee development and improvement. In this new era of performance management, managers become more like coaches who empower their employees to reach their full potential.

👉 Find our guide to the modern way of conducting performance reviews with insightful tips and case studies to get inspired.

Why are employee performance reviews important?

Performance reviews don't have to be complicated, just as long as you don't undervalue their power either. They offer numerous benefits for both individuals and organizations at every level. They:

  • Improve communication
  • Identify strengths and weaknesses
  • Facilitate goal setting
  • Enhance employee engagement
  • Strengthen employee-manager relationships

By investing in performance reviews, you pave the way for continuous improvement and foster a more positive work culture.

Key elements of an effective performance review

Performance reviews play a crucial role in driving employee growth and development while contributing to higher business performance. To conduct impactful performance reviews, it's essential to incorporate key elements that foster a supportive, collaborative, and ultimately thriving environment.

Here are the key elements of an effective performance review process:

Frequent review cycles

Break away from the anxiety-inducing annual performance review and normalize conversations about performance. Implementing regular review cycles allows for ongoing feedback, ensuring employees stay on track and have the opportunity to grow continuously.

For example, quarterly or monthly check-ins provide timely feedback and help address any performance gaps promptly.

Two-way conversations

Performance reviews shouldn't be one-sided. By involving employees in two-way conversations, you demonstrate that their opinions and insights are valued, fostering a sense of ownership and engagement.

Encourage open dialogue and create a space for employees to share their perspectives, offer suggestions, and actively participate in the review process.

Focused on improvements

Modern performance reviews shift the focus from dwelling on past mistakes to emphasizing growth and development. By adopting a forward-thinking approach, you inspire a growth mindset and create a culture that supports continuous learning and development.

Encourage employees to reflect on their experiences, learn from them, and set goals for improvement.

Transparent and honest

Transparency and honesty are paramount in fostering trust between managers and employees. Establish clear communication channels to ensure employees understand how their performance is being assessed and how feedback will be provided.

Transparency also involves clearly communicating the evaluation criteria and ensuring employees have access to the necessary resources for improvement.

Fair and objective review process

A fair and objective review process is essential for employee morale and engagement. Use standardized evaluation criteria that are consistently applied across the organization. This helps maintain fairness and ensures that employees feel their performance is evaluated on an equal basis.

Objective evaluations foster trust and provide employees with a sense of confidence in the review process.

How to prepare for a performance review

To conduct an effective performance review, managers need to prepare in advance. Here are the key prep steps to get ready:

1. Align on performance evaluation criteria

Performance evaluations require a clear understanding of the criteria and metrics used to assess employee performance. It's essential for managers and employees to have a shared understanding of what constitutes good or poor performance.

For example, you might establish criteria such as meeting project deadlines, demonstrating strong communication skills, or displaying proactive problem-solving abilities. By aligning these criteria, you can ensure fairness and consistency in your evaluations.

2. Gather employee data and examples

To provide meaningful performance feedback, gather relevant qualitative and quantitative data, as well as examples that illustrate an employee's performance.

There are different methods of performance evaluation, all of which can be pooled to build a comprehensive performance picture. Qualitative data can come from employee self-evaluation, peer reviews, or supervisor assessments. Whereas quantitative data can come from sales figures or other productivity metrics.

By collecting a range of data and examples, you'll have a well-rounded view of the employee's performance that considers all factors — not just numbers.

3. Use a performance review template

Templates exist for a reason. They provide a pre-existing structure from which you can build on and customize. They also save you time!

Performance review templates provide a set of targeted questions that guide you through each aspect of the review, ensuring you cover all relevant areas with your employee. Using a template saves prep time and helps maintain consistency across each team member's evaluation. It also ensures that no important topics or questions are overlooked.

Officevibe includes performance review templates designed to make the review process even more streamlined, effective, and data-driven.

A preview of Officevibe's employee performance review template
Use performance review templates in Officevibe.

4. Prepare a meeting agenda

Before the performance review meeting, create a detailed agenda to guide the discussion. Outline the specific topics you want to cover, such as achievements, areas for improvement, and future goals. Consider including specific examples or projects to discuss during the meeting.

Having a clear agenda helps keep the conversation focused and ensures that all important points are addressed. It also shows employees that you have taken the time to prepare and value their performance.

👀 Check out our one-on-one meeting agendas that cover most manager-employee scenarios, including performance reviews, performance improvement plans, career development, and more!

5. Schedule your performance review meeting

Set a date and time for the performance review that works for both you and the employee. Choose a time when you can give your undivided attention and create a comfortable environment for open and honest conversation.

Avoid scheduling the review during particularly busy or stressful periods to ensure you can devote sufficient time and attention to the discussion. Scheduling the meeting in advance demonstrates your commitment to the employee's growth and development.

By following these steps and adequately preparing for the performance review, you set the stage for a productive and valuable discussion with your employees. Effective preparation ensures that you have the necessary information, structure, and focus to provide meaningful feedback and pave the way for future growth.

[ov_cta id="5122598"]

How to conduct an employee performance review

Now that you're prepared, let's explore how to conduct an effective performance review. This is the time to engage in a productive conversation that supports employee growth and development.

The following guidelines provide the performance review framework you need to promote employee development, foster positive relationships, and drive organizational success:

1. Set a positive and constructive tone during the review

Approach the review with a supportive and coaching mindset. It's critical to create a safe space for open dialogue, which fosters collaboration much better than when employees don't feel like they have input. Remember that the goal is to empower employees in their future performance by emphasizing what they are capable of rather than reinforcing what they may not be doing well enough.

2. Share positive feedback and recognition

Similar to the compliment sandwich approach, balancing positive feedback with areas for improvement can go a long way. Make sure to share your own feedback and words of acknowledgment to strengthen your manager-employee bond. Additionally, pass on any feedback you received from other colleagues or leaders, which could help the employee feel valued and appreciated.

3. Offer constructive feedback

Discuss any performance challenges or areas of underperformance directly and constructively. By framing things in a constructive way and using specific examples to illustrate your points, you provide more actionable solutions for growth. Navigate difficult conversations with empathy and a focus on finding solutions together.

Need the inspiration to find high-quality feedback? Here are 22 constructive feedback examples and tips to help you deliver feedback that gets results.

4. Give specific examples

By providing specific examples, you can ensure clarity and facilitate productive discussions. Make sure to back up your feedback with concrete examples to make it more impactful and actionable. Contextualizing feedback with current and past performance examples, helps employees understand the specific behaviors or situations that need improvement or reinforcement.

5. Address performance challenges

During the review, address any performance challenges or areas of underperformance directly and constructively. There are many ways to approach poor work performance issues, just remember to lead these conversations with empathy and a focus on finding solutions. By addressing challenges head-on, you can work together with the employee to identify strategies for improvement and growth.

Granted, some conversations are a little bit more difficult than others. Hey, managers are only human. Read our difficult conversation tips to ensure the message (and solution) isn't getting lost in translation.

6. Listen actively

During the performance review, practice active listening to show genuine interest in the employee's perspective. Pay attention to their thoughts, concerns, and aspirations. By actively listening, you create an environment where employees feel heard and valued, fostering trust and engagement.

Active listening is definitely one of those skills that can help anyone in all areas of life — not just at work! So read our tips on how to practice the art of good listening.

7. Define the next steps

Collaborate with the employee to identify actionable next steps. This could look like:

  • Creating a development plan
  • Setting clear goals for improvement
  • Adjust existing performance targets as necessary

By involving employees in the process of defining the next steps, you empower them to take ownership of their growth and development.

Remember, conducting a performance review is not just a one-time event but part of an ongoing performance management system. Ultimately, ensuring continuous feedback and regular check-ins throughout the year helps set, align, and adjust employee goals when appropriate, which contributes to employee growth and success.

What to do after a performance review

The performance review doesn't end with the meeting. Here's what you can do to ensure continuous improvement and growth.

1. Follow up on the next steps

After the performance review, it's crucial to stay involved and provide ongoing support. Follow up on the next steps that were identified during the review. Schedule frequent one-on-ones and other touchpoints to monitor progress and measure results. This demonstrates your commitment to the employee's growth and helps ensure they are on the right track toward achieving their goals.

🤔 Not sure how often to schedule one-on-ones? Find your best formula for one-on-one frequency.

For example, if one of the next steps identified during the review was for the employee to improve their time management skills, you can schedule a follow-up meeting a month later to discuss their progress. During this meeting, you can ask specific questions about their strategies for improving time management, inquire about any challenges they may have encountered, and provide additional guidance or resources if needed.

By following up on next steps, you show that you are invested in your employees' success and provide an opportunity for course correction or further development.

2. Keep the performance conversation going

Embrace the beauty of continuous performance cycles by conducting regular check-ins and one-on-one meetings. These ongoing conversations provide opportunities to discuss progress, address challenges, and provide timely feedback. By maintaining an open line of communication, you can support employees in their growth journey and ensure that performance remains a priority.

For example, you can schedule bi-weekly or monthly one-on-one meetings with your employees to discuss their ongoing projects, address any obstacles they may be facing, and provide guidance or feedback. These meetings create a space for employees to share their achievements, seek guidance on their work, and discuss any new challenges that may have arisen, to assess at your next employee performance review. By keeping the performance conversation going, you demonstrate your commitment to their development and create an environment where continuous improvement is encouraged.

Officevibe supports continuous performance management. This feature provides tools and resources to facilitate ongoing feedback, goal tracking, and one-on-one meetings!

Effective performance review phrases to use in your next review

Crafting meaningful feedback is key to a successful performance review. Here are some examples of performance review phrases, be them appraisals or constructive, to inspire your next review:

  • Creativity: "Your innovative thinking has led to impressive solutions, pushing our team to new heights."
  • Communication: "Your clear and concise communication style has greatly improved team collaboration and project outcomes."
  • Accountability: "You consistently take ownership of your responsibilities, delivering results with a high level of accountability."
  • Productivity: "Your exceptional time management skills and efficient work habits have significantly increased productivity within the team."
  • Collaboration: "Your collaborative approach fosters a positive team environment, encouraging open communication and idea-sharing."
  • Coaching: "Your dedication to mentoring team members has empowered them to grow and excel in their roles."
  • Areas of improvement: "To further enhance your performance, focusing on improving your presentation skills will help you engage stakeholders more effectively."
  • Problem-solving: "Your analytical thinking and resourcefulness have consistently resulted in creative problem-solving and successful outcomes."

Again, following up on any performance feedback with specific examples will make the feedback itself more impactful by giving it context. This will also show the employee you gave the feedback thought. For example, you could pair praise about problem-solving with something along the lines of: "Last month, when we had an issue with project X, you managed to fix this by doing A, B, and C and that ensured we could deliver on time! Thank you."

⭐️ Find more examples of employee feedback that creates an impact, especially relating to more sensitive issues like the need for additional training or failing to meet deadlines, and best practices for delivering them.

Use performance management software

Theoretically, you can master your performance review approach all on your own. Logistically, however, there are ways you can make the entire performance management process infinitely easier for yourself (and your employees).

Performance management software like Officevibe turns the review process into a fun and dynamic aspect of the employee experience. With data-driven features such as goal setting, continuous feedback, and performance tracking, it simplifies, streamlines, and enhances the entire performance review process, making it fair, efficient, and engaging for both managers and employees.

By utilizing performance review software, you can maximize the benefits of performance management, foster employee development, and cultivate a positive work culture.

Elevate growth, engagement, and success with Officevibe

Mastering the art of employee performance reviews is essential for managers looking to drive growth, engagement, and success within their teams. By following the key steps outlined in this guide, you can conduct effective performance reviews that inspire improvement, empower employees, and contribute to overall organizational success.

Remember, performance reviews should be a collaborative and continuous process that prioritizes growth, feedback, and open communication. Embrace the opportunity to support your employees' development and create a culture of excellence!

MONTRÉAL — Nov. 25, 2024 — Workleap, a leading Canadian software company behind products that empower 20,000 companies in more than 100 countries to build better employee experiences, announces its fall platform release introducing new solutions and integrated features into an all-in-one simple-to-use platform. This release marks a new milestone in Workleap’s ongoing commitment to transform the employee experience by empowering HR leaders to drive organizational performance and achieve business goals.

Workleap’s comprehensive platform helps HR lead organizations to thrive in the modern setting of hybrid, remote, and distributed work environments. The consolidated solution for understanding employee engagement, driving performance, and developing employees is the best add-on to your existing HRIS and HR technology, allowing companies to add simple experiences across the employee lifecycle. Bringing these functions together in one platform, Workleap enables HR professionals to create a more responsive, agile and employee-centric work environment.

What's New

  • Workleap Performance streamlines performance management reviews and enables HR teams to guide managers to provide meaningful feedback, align teams with business goals, and easily track progress—all in one place.
  • Workleap Pingboard, an intuitive org-chart, visualization, and company building solution, will be integrated within the Workleap platform before the end of the year.
  • Integrated tools to help HR: Easily visualize employee engagement data within your org chart, streamline onboarding and learning workflows, accelerate content creation with AI designed for HR, and launch custom surveys across the employee journey.
  • Unmatched value: Game-changing bundled pricing lowers the barrier for HR teams of any size to enhance the employee experience.

Why It Matters

Hybrid work has completely reshaped the role of HR. It’s no longer just about managing employees—it’s about building the right frameworks, fostering authentic connections, and leveraging tools that drive meaningful outcomes,” said Simon De Baene, Co-founder and CEO of Workleap. “At Workleap, our mission is clear: make work simpler. The Workleap platform brings together the tools HR teams and leaders need to focus on what matters most—creating workplaces where people feel supported, connected, and empowered to grow. By continuing to invest in our platform, we’re accelerating innovation with solutions like Workleap Performance—designed to be simple, effective, and built to keep HR and leaders ahead as the future of work evolves.”

To learn more about Workleap’s employee experience platform, visit workleap.com.

About Workleap
Workleap is the best add-on to your HRIS to build better employee experiences. The all-in-one Workleap platform empowers organizations to make work simpler by unifying onboarding, engagement, performance, and development —in one platform.

Workleap is a Montréal, Canada-based company building the operating system for hybrid work—unifying the experience to streamline talent management and scale productivity tools across 20,000 companies in more than 100 countries.

Media Contact
Jaclyn Pullen
PANBlast for Workleap
workleap@panblastpr.com

At Workleap, we believe that strong employee experiences stem from three core HR actions:  

  • Understand how your employees feel to make them feel heard.  
  • Help managers to connect their teams and drive them to perform.  
  • Develop your employees, grow their careers, and help them deliver for your business.  

HR work should be human work, supplemented by the right tools.    

It sounds simple (and appealing, no?), but the reality is, finding a simple software solution to unify and streamline this work is like finding a needle in a haystack.   

Refreshingly simple employee experience software  

According to HR.com's State of Today's HR Tech Stack and Integrations 2024 report, 37% of respondents are juggling five to eleven (or more) paid HR solutions in their tech stacks. Your job is certainly complex — but the last thing you need is to manage endless tools and increase costs.  

Workleap's employee experience platform brings the simplicity you're looking for — one solution to unify and streamline everything you need understand your people, connect teams, drive performance, and develop careers. 

Engagement surveys, anonymous feedback, performance management, new employee onboarding, learning management, and career progression — yes, all of this, in one place! It seamlessly integrates with your existing HRIS, adding a layer of simple (and consistently used) experiences. 

And with such a breezy setup, you finally have the breathing room to collect the right inputs, take time to analyze and reflect, and plan concrete actions.  

Hybrid work has completely reshaped the role of HR. It’s no longer just about managing employees—it’s about building the right frameworks, fostering authentic connections, and leveraging tools that drive meaningful outcomes. At Workleap, our mission is clear: make work simpler. The Workleap platform brings together the tools HR teams and leaders need to focus on what matters most—creating workplaces where people feel supported, connected, and empowered to grow. By continuing to invest in our platform, we’re accelerating innovation with solutions like Workleap Performance—designed to be simple, effective, and built to keep HR and leaders ahead as the future of work evolves. - Simon De Beane, CEO and Founder at Workleap 

A main takeaway from the HR.com report is that employee experience is the top priority that businesses want to address with their tech stack. Over half of respondents don't have any capabilities at all!   

We know you know it's time to boost your employee experience. And here's how you do it.   

Understand your people. Make them feel heard.  

Listening is a basic human skill — but in the HR context, it's taken to a whole new level. 

Continuous employee listening involves:   

  • Providing a safe space for employees to answer questions and provide feedback   
  • Acknowledging and analyzing employee responses  
  • Actioning on employee feedback and communicating changes  

Ensuring your people feel heard is a key element of employee listening. As McKinsey senior partner, Carolyn Dewar, says: “You need to genuinely listen and learn, because the organization will sense if you are asking questions but not interested in the answers.” 

While there are many moving parts, continuous listening should be top priority because it goes hand in hand with one of HR's key metrics, employee engagement. In fact, highly engaged employees are three times more likely to say they feel heard at their workplace (92%) than highly disengaged employees (just 30%).   

Good news is, there are tools out there that help you collect constant feedback, regardless of location or time zone.   

How Workleap helps amplify your listening skills   

In a recent Workleap webinar, we brought in HR experts to break down effective listening. (Here's the link to the guide they created for attendees.)  

During the webinar, we talked about the how: How can HR leaders hear and analyze the perspectives of hundreds (or thousands) of employees? Their answer? Find yourself a really good survey and feedback tool.   

Cue: Workleap Officevibe’s engagement surveys and anonymous feedback.  

Both tools offer a safe space and an easy user experience to increase employee participation rates, which means greater insights for you! More recently, we updated our pulse survey tool to enable flexible listening. Now, you can deactivate or add custom questions to help you measure what matters to your organization. 

My team and I enjoy using Workleap Officevibe because we can instantly view our department's engagement temperature while continuously addressing learning and implementing strategies based on employees' voices. - Sivakumar Muniandy, Head of Singapore Contact Centre Operation, AIA Shared Services 

To close the loop, we recommend sharing updates with your people on what you're hearing and doing to address their needs. Open communication is key!  

Connect teams and drive performance 

Patrick Lencioni, author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, captures the power of alignment and connection perfectly when he wrote: 

“If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction, you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.” 

When your people are connected, you’re a force to be reckoned with. Without this, the business goes nowhere. People work inefficiently. Decisions are made more slowly. Alignment ensures everyone works in lockstep. And that can make a big difference on revenue. 

What can you do, as an HR leader of a hybrid organization, to connect your teams from the comfort of your home office? Read on.  

How Workleap helps you connect and drive performance 

When you crack the code for driving alignment, you'll discover endless opportunities. There are many ways to get individuals and teams together and moving in the same direction.   

One way is through performance management. Once organizational goals are defined, then all other individual and team goals can feed this North Star.   

The reality is, however, that many HR pros are struggling to find a performance management solution that blend the flexibility needed to adapt to changing needs with the simplicity and user-friendliness that fosters widespread adoption and efficiency. 

With our new Workleap Performance product, you can finally have a flexible and customizable framework to build performance cycles that fit like a glove. You can easily customize questions and evaluation criteria that align with your organizational goals, mission, and values — while still ensuring a consistent and fair process across managers and teams.   

Another way to align people — that's especially valuable for hybrid or remote workforces and incredibly easy to implement — is by helping people connect with the right collaborators across their company. A tool as simple as a dynamic org chart and employee directory can foster faster relationships by showing who you need to speak with to progress your work.   

With Workleap Pingboard you can instantly improve alignment by fostering connections between employees, streamlining resource planning, and improving internal communications.   

Foster continuous learning and development  

Employees care about learning, development, and growth opportunities. This isn't new news.   

We've seen the data, too. When an organization provides these opportunities, great talent flocks and they stick around. According to the LinkedIn Workplace Learning Report 2024, organizations with strong learning cultures have a +57% retention rate and +23% internal mobility rate.   

Talent development starts from day one and it can be tackled with a strong onboarding process. Fresh training and courses will keep people engaged and growing.   

But we know the behind-the-scenes work of an L&D program — planning, managing, and tracking — can be time-consuming, hard to scale, and frustrating to maintain.   

How Workleap helps you develop talent at scale  

The secret to scaling your learning, development, and growth programs is leveraging AI, tried-and-tested templates, and other tools that remove the heavy lifting, so you can focus on the big picture: building a culture of continuous learning.   

Workleap Onboarding, Workleap LMS, and Workleap Skills all offer templates, automation, and AI to streamline manual admin processes and reduce busywork.  

Need to create new safety training? Hop into Workleap LMS and leverage AI to create a course outline in minutes with a few simple prompts. Want to integrate this course into your new hire's onboarding plan that you just built in Workleap Onboarding? Easy peasy! 

Unifying these product experiences isn’t just great for you — it also helps new hires transition smoothly from onboarding to role-specific training.  

When onboarding, training, and career plans are easier to create and manage, you'll see higher engagement — from your HR team, managers, SMEs, and employees. 

All you need to build impactful employee experiences 

With Workleap's unified platform, you have all you need to tackle the key areas of the employee experience:  

  • Understand how your employees feel to make them feel heard with Workleap Officevibe 
  • Help managers connect their teams and drive them to perform with Workleap Pingboard and Workleap Performance.  
  • Develop employees, grow their careers, and help them deliver for your business with Workleap LMS, Workleap Onboarding, and Workleap Skills 

Let's get back to the work we love to do, simply.